When A Bookbinder’s Miscellany by Bernard Middleton (Alan Isaac Rare Books: Oxford, England, 2015) came in the mail I was surprised to see that inside the little limited-edition blue cloth binding was a selection of articles that Middleton wrote between 1951 and 1976. I had assumed the “miscellany” in the title referred to a collection of recent reflections on his long and distinguished career as a bookbinder rather than a collection of articles mostly written in his mid-20s, just at the beginning.

One or two were familiar to me but for the most part these articles were new, and the overriding impression in reading the book is that of listening to a conversation that started without you. The themes are familiar—amateur vs. trade binders, English vs. French styles, the decline of skills and loss of the big bookbinding firms, worry over the future of the craft. But it’s quite interesting to hear them as they happened in the moment rather than, as I had assumed, in the form of present-day recollections. There’s no editing for hindsight nor, much to my delight, the youthful bravado and brashness of young Bernard compared to the unassuming politeness of present-day Bernard. I started writing down passages that made me laugh (from the page of the first article, on the subject of a badly-bound book: “If I had been so unwise as to exert myself in opening the book there is no doubt that I should have done it (or myself!) an injury…”) and in the end stopped because I was virtually copying down the whole book.

As I worked my way through the articles, fully intending to skim read but ending up lingering on each one, I kept an eye on the dates given at the beginning for when the article was first published. We were on 1951 for so long that I eventually went back to count up and saw that there were seven published that year – in Paper & Print and British Colonial Printer – and the pace doesn’t seem to slow in 1952; presumably there were others that didn’t make the cut for the book. Bernard was 27 then, and though they’re not generally very lengthy articles, one has the impression of a prolific early career in writing as well as bookbinding that set the stage for his later books, The Restoration of Leather Bindings (American Library Association: 1972), A History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique (Hafner: 1963), and Recollections: My Life in Bookbinding (Bird & Bull Press: 1995).

An introduction by Middleton and Alan Isaac gives an overview of the profession and the process of bookbinding, illustrated with a few pages of color photos taken by Isaac that do help illustrate the points despite sometimes unhelpful angles (eg. from the side when trying to show an unevenly rounded spine, so that the unevenness is not very apparent) and distracting backgrounds. The introduction was a helpful orientation to someone who hasn’t trained as a trade binder or has limited experience, although one would probably need to have a certain level of experience to get much out of this book as a base level of knowledge on the part of the reader is assumed. Some interesting changes in perspective are visible here; when describing squares 2015 Middleton indicates that “Taste has historically dictated the dimensions of the squares… they should be proportionate, neither excessively large or mincingly small,” (5) though 1954 Middleton cautions that “Small square are neat and impart an air of refinement, whereas large ones give the binding a heavy ledger-like appearance” (71).

The articles that follow are in no particular subject order but one can nevertheless group them into a few categories. There are, of course, notes on technique: “The Supported French Groove,” “The Art of Covering with Leather,” “Notes on the Hand Sewing of Books,” “Facsimile Printing.” These are practical but still filled with notes that help explain why things might be done a certain way, or that give context to the style of the times, often with a nod towards how things used to be done either in terms of fashion or to lament a loss of skill or market for such objects. There are quite a few that focus on the differences between binding in England and elsewhere: “Notes on Craft Bookbinding in Paris,” “Two Bookbinding Exhibitions: Abstract Motif in Irish Work,” “Book Review: American Bindings of the Finest Quality.” In these, and in parts of other articles, Middleton studiously compares technique, aesthetic, and practice, often to comedic effect as in this description of a French binder using their typical paring knife rather than a spokeshave to reduce a whole skin, “The girl I watched … was working on it when I arrived and was still prodding away at it when I left the bindery 20 minutes later. … [The spokeshave] has come into general use in England only during the last 30 years, or so, and there are still a few members of the old school who prefer French knives and look capable of slicing human skin if it is suggested that they are out-dated” (49).

In “Controversial Thoughts on the Decoration of Fine Binding” as well as throughout other articles, Middleton argues for book design to follow all other household objects in becoming sleek, smooth, and modern. I was interested to see him advocate for a smooth spine, because raised bands lead one to decorate in the old-fashioned styles. There is much lamenting throughout that those with the money to pay for fine bindings tend to be older, thus (understandably, he says) tend towards old-fashioned styles, and this combined with poor education in design leads to books made with little imagination. I would have quite liked to see images of his bindings from the time, compared to those he does not prefer, and I wonder what he thinks now about the ideal style for a binding.

Other articles give portraits of great names in bookbinding, such as Sydney Cockerell, Thomas Harrison, Roger Powell, and Arthur Johnson: “Fine Binding: A Craft and its Craftsmen,” and “He Was a Good Man and a Friend to All (Thomas Harrison)”. One name that appears quite a few times throughout with a lot of respect is William Matthews, who I knew only as the “Mr Matthews” who taught Maureen Duke, who in turn taught me. In the way that when I now teach, my students hear Maureen’s familiar refrains (“Give it a bit of lick!”), I heard Mr. Matthews’ through her, like stories of my parents’ grandparents that I never knew. An inevitable positive aspect to working in such a small field is the persistence of ghosts, the passing of not only knowledge from generation to generation, but of people.

The best way to experience this book must be to sit with it and Bernard at the same time, so that after every other sentence one could look up and pepper him with questions. One has the feeling, especially in the concluding piece written for the book by Bernard, that there are still so many stories there wasn’t room to print.

Abigail Bainbridge is a book & paper conservator. She is the conservation
science lecturer for the MA in book & paper conservation
program at Camberwell College of Arts (London) and is Associate Tutor in
the book conservation department at West Dean College. She is also
occasional short course tutor at the London Center for Book Arts and
Women's Studio Workshop (US). Abigail is a member of ICON and the
treasurer of its Book & Paper Group. She can be found online at http://www.bainbridgeconservation.com.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

"... The thirteen entries in the blook-themed Bind-O-Rama are a diverse group of objects inspired by personal stories, real and imagined texts and historic book objects. While some are closely related to known book objects, others take a more abstract approach, reminding me of how artists see a single challenge from many perspectives. Some of the entries are more blookish than others. Barbara Hebard and Jana Pullman’s entries are traditional blooks modeled on the leather-bound rare book boxes made since the nineteenth century to protect precious bindings. Jana’s boxes are empty, awaiting something precious to protect worthy of the their beauty. Barbara’s box has a specific function as a reliquary in honor of St. Anthony, patron saint of bookbinders. Paula Krieg’s Phone Book is modeled on the traditional book safe. Her work carries a strong emotional and social message, as well as performing the traditional roles of protection, containment and secrecy.

Some of the works have been inspired by traditional multi-functional book objects. Anita Balkun’s blooks are shrine-like pieces reminiscent of cumdachs, medieval book-style reliquaries. Both contain relics and reminiscences of the men she honors in these sculptures. Two works emulate traditional book-style board and card games. Carolyn Leigh’s piece Al-quirq/Checkers and Draughts is an intriguing cross-cultural variation of the classic faux two-volume book-style game board, usually made for playing chess, checkers and backgammon; Charlene Matthews' Traveling Dominos is an elegant version of a traditional book-style card game enclosure and Dorothy Krause’s wearable book Hanging Out, a souvenir of her trip to Rome is reminiscent of many souvenir books, wearable and otherwise..."

Sunday, November 15, 2015

The Society of Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition 2015, Edited
by Arthur Green and Hannah Brown, Dorchester, UK: printed by Henry
Ling, Ltd.; published by The Society of Bookbinders, 2015. GBP 22.50,
available from the Society of Bookbinders.

Reviewed by Barbara Adams Hebard

In
the age of electronic devices, on-line exhibitions have frequently
become the chosen venue for displays of bookbindings. While I completely
understand the usefulness of this mode – wider audience, less cost,
global curators and exhibitors, possibility of showing large numbers and
multiple views of books, running the exhibit for an extended period of
time, and so forth – I still appreciate seeing images of books in print
form. The Society of Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition 2015
catalogue, printed to accompany a physical exhibit of the same title
which ran from August 20-23, 2015, is a lasting legacy of that show held
at Keele University. The award-winning books could later be seen
through November 5, 2015 at George Bayntun, Fine Bindings and Rare
Books, Bath, and then, in a final venue, at Shepherds, London, November
14, 2015 through January 8, 2016. If you missed the show in August and
will not be travelling to London in the near future, all is not lost;
this catalogue beautifully captured the eighty-five bookbindings in the
exhibit. [Publisher's note: The online version of the catalog linked to above only shows the competition's award winners]

Since I am a bookbinder, I immediately began
my investigation of the catalogue by poring over the pages containing
the book images. Right off, I was delighted to find that prize-winning
entries in all five entrance categories were shown with good-sized whole
book images and a second, closer view of a detail of the book. At least
one book in each of the entrance categories was given two images as
well. The fact that there were five categories is marvelous, including
fine binding, complete book, case binding, restoration, and historical
binding. The judges must have had a challenging time choosing the
prize-winning entries; the catalogue is filled with fantastic bindings. I
have to say, though, that Andrew Sims’s sumptuous Harleian-style
binding in Morocco covering the Book of Common Prayer stands out as a masterful example of hand-tooling, and so expertly resembles 18th century style that it is not surprising as the selection for the Fine Cut International Award for Finishing. This is the sort of binding that inspires the admiration of fellow bookbinders as well as book collectors.

The Book of Common Prayer by Andrew Sims

Visite au Petit Matin by Ingela Dierick

Sims’s
binding featured a number of floral decorative motifs; several other
books also had floral themes, albeit very different in style. Ingela Dierick created a lovely, delicate bouquet of onlaid leather flowers in a
design that charmingly sweeps from the front board to the back,
suggestive of a guest handing flowers to a hostess, as in the theme of
the book, Visite au Petit Matin. Abigail Bainbridge’s journal, Herbarium, covered in a vellum binding entrapping pressed flowers and foliage, dramatically evokes lavishly illuminated 15th century manuscript leaves or early embroidered bindings.

Herbarium by Abigail Bainbridge

Pan by Peter D. Verheyen

Bainbridge
was not the only one who imaginatively used vellum to convey a theme in
deceptively simple-appearing binding style. Peter Verheyen, whom I have
long considered a master of subtle, elegant bindings, has achieved this
with the natural-toned vellum covering Eight Wood Engravings on a Theme of Pan.
The variation of color on the surface of the vellum reveals the
markings of the fur originally attached to that skin, quickly reminding
an observer that Pan, the subject of the engravings, has the
hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat. Additionally, the use of
snakeskin with a pattern boldly resembling vertebrae on the spine of the
binding, and the placement of the sewing supports, make this a
pleasingly proportioned design. Karen Hanmer, too, exploits the
character of vellum in a limp binding used to encase The Anatomical Exercises of Doctor William Harvey: Concerning the Motion of the Heart and Blood.
While she used only four illustrations from the text to embellish the
cover (arms with accentuated veins), the prominent veining on the vellum
surface completes the message.

The Anatomical Exercises of Doctor William Harvey by Karen Hanmer

A Midsommer Nights Dreame by Dominic Riley

In bright contrast to
the vellum bindings, books in variegated hues are represented in this
catalogue as well. Using black goatskin with multicolor onlays and gold
tooling for the cover of A Midsommer Nights Dreame, Dominic Riley skillfully put together a bookbinding which is both
eye-catching and displays admirable control of technique. The
gold-tooled lines forming the shape of the palace arches introduce depth
to the flat plane of the boards, causing the bright colors of the trees
and banner to appear to hover dreamily over the surface. Erin Fletcher,
the only North Bennet Street School Bookbinding Program graduate whose
work was in the exhibit, did her school proud with a nicely executed
binding for The Nightingale and the Rose. An inlaid
scarlet goatskin line visually pierces the book’s spine, and the
embroidered feathers of the bird onlaid to the upper board add dimension
to the cover. You can read about it being bound here.

The Nightingale and the Rose by Erin Fletcher

One could go on describing other
excellent books, but the truth is, bookbinders need to see the catalogue
for themselves. The bookbindings, made using multiple techniques and
materials, signal that this is not a dying craft and that binders are
still experimenting/experiencing new ways to use their skills and design
arts to create unique books.

Once I had savored the
books, I returned to the beginning of the catalogue to discover that, in
addition to the beautiful images of books, there are other enjoyable
features to this catalogue. The warm-hearted tone of the introduction
draws the reader in, and the brief history of the society will be useful
to those who are not bookbinders. Listing sponsors up front is a good
move and having the entrance categories spelled out is very helpful. The
images of the tools of the trade tucked in the gutters and margins of
the introductory pages nicely balance out the text. I had a couple of
minor quibbles: the Contents page repeats the case binding
category and the names of the bookbinders in that category, which is
confusing; and the countries of origin of the binders are printed in
faint grey tone—since it was an international exhibit, I thought that
should be emphasized more.

The Society of Bookbinders
has produced a great catalogue to accompany their 2015 international
bookbinding competition. It will remain a record of that show and those
who enjoy bookbindings or books about bookbinding should consider adding
this volume to their collection.

Barbara Adams Hebard was trained in bookbinding at the North Bennet Street
School. She was Book Conservator at the Boston Athenaeum for 18 ½ years
and became the Conservator of the John J. Burns Library at Boston
College in 2009. Ms. Hebard writes book related articles and book
reviews, gives talks and presentations, exhibits her bookbindings
nationally and internationally, and teaches book history classes. She is
a Fellow of IIC, a Professional Associate of AIC, and an Overseer of
the North Bennet Street School.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Every once in a while I wonder how many postings and members Book_Arts-L has, and love to look at Book Arts Web usage in Google Analytics. It's a sick habit, but someone needs to have it and do it.

Book_Arts-L was founded in June of 1994 and quickly grew in subscribers and posting activity. The Book Arts Web started about a year later and was also the list "homepage" with links to the archive and the FAQ. With VERY few exceptions the archive(s) hold all postings since 1994, and they continue to be a valued resource. Unfortunately, there are no usage statistics for those.

So, the past few nights (rather than working on my Ernst Collin bibliography) I downloaded the basic metadata (A word with eight letters) from the Archives (1994-2009) and (2009-present). These included message subject, poster, date, lines/message (since 2009). Total number of subscribers shot over 1000 quickly, and then grew to the 2400+ we have now with dips and spikes along the way.

Below some (messy) graphics... As always click to enlarge.

Since 2010, an overall decline in number of postings to list...

Posting activity varies greatly from month to months with summers and New Years low(er) points...

Here a different way to view same data, very similar patterns month by month, year by year.

And here the data for both of the above...

We tend to post more messages Monday-Tuesday & Thursday-Friday than on Wednesday and weekends...

Wednesdays in March seem busiest, Mondays in December quietest...

The list "hall of fame" (or shame) of top-15 posters. Ignore Peter D. Verheyen, he's the listowner.
Reviewing all subscribers by postings was like a walk down memory lane. Some are still very active, others no longer subscribed (or posting).

Names, years active, and total postings. We hit 200 total postings in the list with subscribers #43, 100 with #108, 50 with #268, and 10 with #1270... There are 74521 postings total in the archives.

Here some Book_Arts-L demographics from 2004, showing where the 1789 subscribers came from. Important to note in the below charts, a Gmail user in Germany, Australia, ... will show up as being in the US due to the .com...

And, here from 2006... with 1922 of us.

And here from today (10/17/15), 2451 subscribers from 22 countries.

So, we have less posting from an increasing number of subscribers... Postings are often substantive though, certainly more so than on Web 2.0 "social media," we're still Web 1.0 here.

Google Analytics captures usage of the Book Arts Web since 2007.

I started using
Google Analytics in December 2006. Just as the number of overall number
of listserv postings is declining, so is the amount of traffic to the website...

A little spikier than the graph above where Book_Arts-L postings are overlaid as I am also showing monthly data...

Here the demographics by top 10 countries for the Book Arts Web.

(2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

Below, some statistics for the Book Arts Web. Though no longer in publication, The Bonefolder (2004-2012) continues to be downloaded at a very high rate with regular citations of articles in other publications whether print, blogs, email postings, twitter, tumblr, ...

Top 25 pages overall (2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

Top 25 social media referrals (2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

And finally some pictures of the tech people use to access the Book Arts Web, and presumably our Book_Arts-L subscribers as well.

Operating system (2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

Browser (2007 - 10/1/2015)
Click to enlarge

So, despite what we may think about the artsy crowd being largely Mac users, ahem... Also interesting the low number of mobile users. The site does work on a mobile...

What does all this tell me (us)? That there are more subscribers but less postings to the list, esp since about 2008 when Google Analytics became available. These declines seem also to affect usage of other platforms such as Bookbinding (formerly an active list on Yahoo, now a forum), the Book Arts Forum, various other similar sites. The Guild of Book Workers listserv I started in 1997-8 is also very low volume. I also like to participate on some German sites, and have seen similar declines, an example being Bücher Binden, a list started by Peter Baumgartner who was active here as well, and is the author of several books on binding. Since then we have however also seen an "explosion" of other media such as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter. So we have more choices in where we find our information.

Some time in the future, I'll rework my Getting us out / Bringing us together:
How listservs and the Web have changed the way in which book artists
work and communicate. I presented this at "Hot
Type in a Cold World," a symposium celebrating the 25th anniversary
of the Silver Buckle Press at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
November 20, 1998. That was 4 years after the Book_Arts-L started, and 3 after the University of Idaho Bookarts, Richard Minsky, and I/the Book Arts Web went online (more here).

Regardless, what we have here is an incredibly robust community that has been sustained over 20 years, having also been very stable in terms of web presence as well. Some URLS have changed, but not as many as one might think.

Thank you!

ps: I'd love to find some way to determine a list of subjects discussed based on volume of responses... Anyone?

“I consistently design beyond what I know I am capable of doing, and have to discover or invent the means as I go along.” – Trevor Jones (1931-2012)

The Bindings of Trevor Jones catalogs over 140 works by this eclectic bookbinder who sought experimentation with materials and a connection with fine art in his designs. In this impressive collection spanning nearly fifty years, his legacy in the history of bookbinding is made more than apparent. As one of the founding members of Designer Bookbinders, he and his colleagues helped revive the art and craft of bookbinding in Britain during the second half of the 20th century. The images in the catalog are supplemented by detailed sketches and notes from the binder, as well as articles he wrote in the 1980s and 90s that are as informative and enlightening today as they undoubtedly were then.

Cat 49, Ivor Bannet, The Amazons

The full color images of the bindings are arranged in chronological order, from Jones' first experiments as a student to the fully formed, complex and expertly executed designs of later years. His early work was influenced by his first binding instructor, Arthur Johnson, who displayed a modern design aesthetic that echoed the fine art of the middle of the 20th century. Jones' early bindings, in their asymmetrical compositions, amorphous color onlays and fluid black tooled lines, call to mind the bindings of Johnson and Edgar Mansfield, as well as painters like Miro and Picasso. At that time and in the years to come, Jones was inspired by the work of his peers and teachers rather than the purely decorative or overly restrained bindings of the past.

This forward looking approach to binding led to a great sense of experimentation. The catalog contains an informative essay on the use of spirit dyes, which is one of the many inventive techniques Jones utilized in his work. The freedom which the use of these dyes gave him was essential to his artistic development and allowed him to incorporate his training as an illustrator into his bindings. Jones often used the cover of a book as a painter would a canvas, filling it completely with pictorial, painterly representations, frequently of the human form. In his design of James Joyce's Pomes Penyeach, the binder made an innovative structural decision based on the need to have a long horizontal surface on which to depict a reclining nude. He doubled the amount of board surface by hinging another board to both the front and back covers. These inner covers are hidden when the book is fully closed, revealing only a portion of the female nude figure on the exterior. He used this cover structure many times throughout his work to increase the surface area on which to construct a design while simultaneously creating a cinematic effect of a long horizontal image fully revealed only through manipulation by a reader/viewer.

Cat 64, James Joyce, Pomes Penyeach

During the 1970s, many binders responded to new movements in visual art and architecture that exposed the function of an object and incorporated it into its design. During the same time period, the massive flooding of libraries in Italy brought to light many examples of historical binding structures which complimented the new functionalist art movements. Jones took note of these developments and made use of the sewing support as a design element in several of his best bindings. Dark cords and lacings snake across covers showing themselves in unexpected places. In the description for his binding of Edgar Mansfield's 11.2.80 On Creation he reveals that he used a method of chance to determine the composition of the cover, lifting the long cords up and letting them drop repeatedly, tracing the results. This method of discovery and openness to process is indicative of much of his work. The design for this same binding continues on the inside of the covers where the laces from the exterior appear again, embedded in the doublures of grey goatskin, having emerged through eyelet holes or wrapped around edges.

Cat. 80, Edgar Mansfield, 11.2.80 On Creation

One of Jones' most ambitious projects is his first binding of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The structure of the book and its casing is artfully complex and captures the ominous mood of the text. The binder uses old leather gloves to create onlays in dark browns and reds, cutting and spreading single gloves out to construct seemingly monstrous hands that appear to be reaching, flailing, or grasping. Three sewing tapes are exposed on the spine and ten dark leather thongs trail across the front and back covers, gathering at each corner and spilling over the covers as loose ties. The closed book sits in the chest area of a large straight-jacketed, simplified human form sewn from canvas in muted colors. The human form wraps around the book, snapping closed, revealing the roughly stenciled title of the book. The whole is contained in a hinged, wooden box. Every detail of this work, including the custom paste paper flyleaves, evokes a powerful and haunting image of the human soul, psychologically bound and oppressed.

Cat. 75, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Cat. 75, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

In Nineteen Eighty-Four and other work, Jones incorporated found materials in his designs, such as leather gloves, scraps of clothing, fur, handbags, wallets, and lacings. The found materials seem to share a connection to the human body, with the marks of time and use celebrated and highlighted by the binder. Jones also integrated into his designs the raw edges of the animal skins he worked with and would reinforce the grain of the leather and purposefully pucker and manipulate the skins, creating texture and dimension.

Cat.118, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Cat.118, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Jones had a deep connection with much of the work he chose to bind. He states in one of the catalog's essays that “[E]ven when I am binding a book for someone else I am at the time making it for myself.” The texts he worked with have a distinctly modern character, including those by James Joyce (of which there are many examples), George Mackay Brown, George Orwell, Arthur Miller, and David Jones. For the binding of Arthur Miller's, Death of a Salesman, Jones used onlays, inlays, cracquelle work, and stenciled spirit dyes to create two gripping, large scale self-portraits on front and back covers. The perspective and scale of the faces allow the viewer to connect with the deeply flawed everyman at the center of Miller's story. The tone and color of the portraits is dark and beautiful, ranging from a warm honeyed brown, like an aged photograph, where the cracks and fissures of the cracquelle work are most apparent, to the deep complimentary blue and purple-blacks. These are not just book covers, they are compelling paintings as well.

Trevor Jones created deeply personal work, unique in the history of bookbinding. The craftsmanship and art-making on display in this collection is informative and inspiring for anyone interested in the art of design binding, while the essays and historical context for the work advance and enrich the field of bookbinding on an international scale.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Deadline PassedOnline Exhibit Coming Soon

The 2015 Bind-O-Rama is devoted to the subject of BLOOKS, objects made in the emulation of books. This is an opportunity for blook artists of ALL creeds (binders, printer, papermakers, decorated paper makers, …) to apply your creative energy and bookbinding talents to making a book object that examines and expresses your relationship with the book. Around the world, for hundreds of years, people have been making book-objects that reflect their devotion and respect for books and for each other. There are countless examples; they include bars, cameras, radios, banks, toys, memorials, food tins, desk accessories, book safes and boxes, vases, musical instruments, magic tricks, furniture, jewelry and artworks. Blooks embody the same characteristics as books and many take the form of specific titles and book formats. They signify knowledge, education, taste, power, wealth and more. They have been treasured and passed down through the generations, and many thousands reside in private homes, public and private businesses and in museums and libraries around the world. Blooks have been used to celebrate and memorialize important occasions and personal losses and successes. They serve as reminders of memorable visits to important places, as receptacles to hold valuable and practical objects and are the source of great amusement. Start making your heirloom now and let your imagination run wild!

If you are interested in participating in the Bind-o-rama but need some inspiration or challenge for an idea, or want to base your design on an historical object, contact Mindell Dubansky or see her blog About Blooks

The exhibition Blooks: The Art of Books That Aren't (book objects from the collection of Mindell Dubansky) will be on view at the Grolier Club in New York City from January 28-March 12, 2016. A full-color, 9 x 11 inches, 96 page, paperback catalog will be available. For a limited time, Mindell is taking orders for unbound copies for hand binders. The price is $45 plus shipping, pre-payment is required for books in sheets. If you are interested the exhibition, it's programs, reserving an unbound copy or pre-ordering a bound copy, contact Mindell and visit the Grolier Club website later this year.

Cherish each step along the way and perform it as completely and gracefully as possible.

Jamie Kamph’s Tricks of the Trade: Confessions of a Bookbinder is part memoir, part how-to, and part a collection of essays on the engineering aspects of binding, all gleaned from this design binder/conservator’s forty years of experience.

Kamph clearly and generously shares her process, though this is not intended to be a step-by-step manual, and the book is written with the experienced practitioner in mind. Binding, repair, design, and finishing are all addressed. Well-illustrated with diagrams and in-process photos, plus images of forty of her completed design bindings, the book also serves as a catalog of Kamph’s work.

An introduction provides Kamph’s philosophy of binding. Her process is one of both prudence and decisiveness: “At each step of a binding or rebinding I evaluate my work and decide if it is good enough to continue.” Throughout the book she echoes a sensible rule-of-thumb to bind by and to live by: “Don’t do anything you can’t undo.” She ends with a reading list of her go-to sources for binding history and technique.

M.F.K. Fischer, Deux Cuisines en Provence

The book proceeds with Kamph’s career transition from publishing to bookbinding after writing an article on hand bookbinding in New York City. Kamph had an ulterior motive in accepting the assignment: a book collector since her college days, she hoped to find a local source for repair of her own collection. Interviews with numerous binders led to an invitation to a one-evening “try-out” class with Deborah Evetts to determine if she had potential as a binder, then weekly lessons with Hope Weil, and finally establishment of her own Stonehouse Bindery.

Kamph continued her study independently, offering to examine every binding in nearby Princeton University’s rare book collections, and to report to the curator on bindings of note. The objective of her survey was twofold: research not only historical finishing design but also how various binding methods had withstood centuries of use. Kamph was seeking a structure that would support the designs that have become her trademark: elaborate tooling and onlays on the spine extending across the joints and onto the boards. A tight back spine might not be smooth enough to take gold tooling well, and the flexing from opening could cause the gold to flake off. The opening of a hollow back can exert enough pressure on the joints to cause the boards to detach over time. She found the engineering solution she was seeking in a 16th century Swiss binding: a tight back with a leather spine lining. With further refinements, this is the structure she still uses today.

Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, vol. 1

Kamph next address her signature design style, illustrated by photographs of her completed bindings, sometimes shown alongside the period works she used for reference or inspiration. Her broad design vocabulary draws on a variety of mediums: visual and decorative arts, maps, architecture, and garden and textile design. Typography and decorative elements from the text often inspire a pattern which might be repeated, rotated, reversed, exploded. She also draws on historical book decoration, fragmenting or exaggerating elements to provide a more contemporary, often playful feel.

Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

She gives us a window into her design process, whether searching for just the right antiquarian image of an angel, finding an astrological map for the night Captain Ahab’s ship left Nantucket, or borrowing watercolor techniques to capture the play of light on a tableau of fruit.

This introduction to Kamph and her work is followed by twenty-some brief chapters, arranged roughly in the order a book is bound or by complexity of repair, followed by finishing techniques and tips on developing a design. Though Tricks of the Trade is not a step-by-step manual, much how-to information is provided in the narrative. Each chapter is a stand-alone essay on one step in the binding process, peppered with tips and anecdotes. The feel is that of the conversations binders have following a lecture or demonstration: colleagues swapping their personal techniques and the tribulations that got them there.

Topics covered include humidity in the studio, useful bindery items borrowed from the medicine cabinet and toolbox, adhesives, paper repair, board attachment, zig-zag endsheets, backing, spine lining, the inseparable actions of sharpening and paring, headbanding, headcaps, and corners. Later chapters address repair: inner and outer joints, cloth cases, rebacking. A chapter is devoted to the repair of a set of three nineteenth century novels in their original but very damaged paper bindings. Before and after photos show new bindings that retain the spirit of the modestly elegant originals.

Throughout, Kamph shares her preferred materials and suppliers, and describes equipment of her own design: a brass-edged recasing press, her tool-polishing set-up, a holder for rolls of gold leaf. I found numerous tips I may or may not have ever arrived at on my own: using tweezers when I might have reached for a thin folder, substituting thin Reemay where I would have used Japanese tissue, using book cloth matching the case for a hollow where I would have used paper, application of glair with a refillable water brush when I would have used a brush or the much more difficult to maintain technical pan, silicone release paper when I would have used Mylar.

She offers a multitude of possibilities for altering new plain or decorated paper to match old. She addresses making endband cores and reveals a clever method for anchoring the core to the text block to ease the awkward initial wraps before the first tie-downs.

Particularly welcome are chapters addressing the dual nemesis of many fine binders: headcaps and corners. She notes that a well-formed headcap is in fact the convergence of numerous steps properly executed: not just covering but also spine lining, leather paring, headbanding, and attention to the appropriate historical style for that particular book. Kamph provides three options for forming corners, all illustrated with step-by-step diagrams. The most interesting, borrowed from Swiss binder Gerard Charrière, oddly resembles the historical tongue corner but with a shorter tongue pared very thin and folded beneath the two side flaps, which meet seamlessly above it.

A chapter on repair of the brawny, brittle family bible acknowledges this quotidian mission that binders love to hate. Kamph describes her method of washing and drying the text pages in “clumps,” repairing pages, and resewing to control swell, followed by backing to fit the old boards, or if new boards must be selected, the luxury of selecting a thicker pair to comfortably fit a generous shoulder.

Another chapter is devoted to a case study of Kamph’s treatment of a dilapidated first edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language. The two volumes bought at auction by a long-time client came with detached boards, some missing pages, and no leather remaining on the spines. However, the sewing was mostly intact, and rubbings of the spine reveled that the old glue still held impressions of the original tooling. Scans of the missing pages were acquired, printed onto paper toned to match the text and sewn on, new cords were attached to the old and the boards reattached, the books were rebacked. Using the spine rubbings as her guide, Kamph drew a design for a decorative tool to be made to match the original and purchased the 24-point Times Roman Condensed that was a reasonable match for the original titling font.

First edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, before treatment

First edition of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, after treatment

The greatest strength of Tricks of the Trade may lie in the final chapters on finishing techniques and generating design ideas. First Kamph describes the process of transferring the design of onlays, gold lines and titling to the binding by tooling through a pattern on translucent graph paper. This process is illustrated with photographs of a full pattern, a close-up of the pattern showing the numerous line segments marked to designate each tools that makes up each segment of the design, and the completed binding. Further instructions are given for cutting onlays to the precise size and shape required and setting them in place.

In just fourteen, highly-efficient pages, Kamph presents design possibilities, tools, and techniques for gold tooling. She discusses the optimal binding structure and choice of leather to lay the foundation for tooling, how to form an intricate design using just a few tools, how to modify tools to build the desired pattern, and when blind tooling might be a better design choice than gold. She outlines each step of the process: blinding-in, applying glair, polishing the tool, applying the gold, cleaning the impression, applying additional gold as needed and troubleshooting. Kamph uses ribbon gold, a roll of gold wound on a spool, interleaved with thin tissue. Ribbon gold is not applied directly to the book like leaf; instead it is picked up with a greased, heated tool which is then applied to the blind impression. The chapter concludes with a very useful matrix laying out methods for managing the interactions of leather, gold, glair, heat and pressure, tools, patterns, humidity and boards when conditions are “bad,” better,” or “best.”

H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

In “How to Cheat at Gold Tooling,” Kamph offers suggestions for replacing missing tooling or refreshing damaged tooling on the fragile leather of antiquarian bindings, or adding tooling to a reback that will be a reasonable match to that on the remnants of the original spine.

The final chapter addresses generating design ideas. First, look to the book itself: read the text, look at the images. What is it about, where and when does it take place, what are the larger themes, and what items might be associated with any of this? A quick Web search will yield numerous possibilities, which can spur many additional ideas.

Kamph presents multiple techniques for onlays, some unconventional. She often repeats an onlay shape as a frieze extending across the spine from foredge to foredge. Instead of using these leather shapes themselves as onlays, she sometimes applies the strip of thinned leather they were cut from to the book, with the negative space making shapes appear in the leather the book is bound in. Kamph ends with a reminder to include the title in the design process. Freedom from traditional placement and content can reinforce themes in the text while enhancing the design.

Walt Whitman, The Half-Breed and Other Stories

A photograph of Kamph’s Stonehouse Bindery wraps from the back to front cover of Tricks of the Trade. Her New Jersey farm is visible through bench-to-ceiling windows on two sides of the studio. This scene completes the profile of the binder, her methods, and her work.

* Karen Hanmer was an early reader of this book.

Karen Hanmer’s artist-made books are physical manifestations of personal essays intertwining history, culture, politics, technology and arid wit. Her work is included in collections ranging from The Getty Museum and the Library of Congress to Yale University and Graceland. She is winner of the Jury Prize for Binding in the 2009 Helen Warren DeGolyer American Bookbinding Competition and is one of only eight graduates of the American Academy of Bookbinding’s Fine Binding program. Hanmer is a leader in the book arts community, having served on the editorial board of The Bonefolder, as Exhibitions Chair for the Guild of Book Workers, and as frequent exhibition curator and juror. She offers workshops and private instruction focusing on a solid foundation in basic binding skills. www.karenhanmer.com